Relationship between cigarette dose and perceived risk of lung cancer

Background. Most people are aware that smoking cigarettes increases the ris k of ill health, in particular of lung cancer. The precise way in which the y relate amount of exposure to smoke and level of health risk has not, howe ver, been determined. Methods. A convenience sample of 155 French adolescents and adults ages 15 to 75 rated the risk of "smoker's cancer"-the popular term for lung cancer- in 24 scenarios depicting eight levels of daily cigarette consumption of th ree concentrations of nicotine. The data were analyzed according to functio nal measurement methodology to ascertain the forms of the relationship betw een exposure and perceived risk. Results. All subjects perceived that the risk of smoker's cancer increased as smoking increased. Yet at high levels of consumption, additional cigaret tes were generally judged to result in decreasing increments of risk, regar dless of the nicotine content of the cigarettes and the sex and smoking sta tus of the participants. Adolescents, however, were more likely than adults to perceive a Linear, rather than a negatively accelerated, relationship. Conclusions. The actual form of the relationship between the dose of cigare tte smoke and risk of lung cancer is either Linear or positively accelerate d. Public health educators and physicians should be aware that, at least in France, many people, particularly adults, incorrectly perceive this relati onship as negatively accelerated. (C) 1999 American Health Foundation and A cademic Press.